Falling Grace. Melissa Shirley

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СКАЧАТЬ and, okay, hot, stranger drag me behind him without once thinking he could be hauling me off to meet my death, and I hadn’t even had a drink yet.

      “Stop.” I yanked my fingers out of his grasp and back to my side, squinting up at him. His raw beauty brought a flush of heat to my cheeks, and I reached down. “I have pepper spray in my purse.” With shaking fingers, I patted the bag on my shoulder.

      He shook his head and chuckled. “City girls.” He waved a hand in a wide arc at the building in front of us. “I don’t know how y’all season your food up there in Illinois, but here in Texas, we have shakers.”

      A diner? With the smells of home cooking wafting out the door? I took a deep breath and held it, savoring the aromas of cooked meats. “You brought me to a restaurant?”

      He nodded. “Yeah.”

      “Wow.” My mouth watered at the thought of a decent meal, and my neglected stomach started a happy dance in tune to the growling inside.

      “I think the special today is open faced roast beef and potatoes.” He held out his hand again. “Come on. I’ll buy you dinner.”

      I looked him up and down. Six feet of tall, semi-dark, and drool-worthy handsome and the offer of roast beef--had I stepped out of the office into heaven?

      “Okay.” I slipped my palm against his and followed him inside. The box of ignored condoms at the market pushed all other thoughts right out of my head.

      My heart hammered as he led me to a booth in the front corner of the building. I’d no more than slid in across from him when his carbon copy stepped up to the table. My mouth dropped open. The gene pool had opened up and provided the world two yummy specimens of perfection, and I, lucky traveler, sat gaping between them. “Two wins?”

      “Hi.” The standing twin barely glanced at me. Instead, he turned a wary pair of eyes on his brother. “Did you bring back bread?” His accent, an English lilt, delighted my ears as much as the drawl I’d all but swooned over moments earlier.

      Blane looked down at the table, then back up with a grin that robbed me of the ability to breathe. “Oh, come on, Jamie. I brought a customer.”

      Jamie spun on his heel and stalked back to the counter, muttering as he went. “Bloody well forget it. I knew I should have sent Mum.”

      Blane shook his head and raised his eyebrows as his gaze searched my face. “I was distracted.”

      “All you have are excuses. You’re not getting any food until I have bread. You can starve.”

      A woman, whose shade of blond matched my Miss Clairol number 001, and whose eyes mirrored those of the man opposite me, glided to the table and ran an adoring hand through Blane’s hair. “Oh, my little lover boy.” She pinched his cheek between her thumb and forefinger. “We can’t have roast beef without bread.”

      “Sorry, Mom.”

      “You have to watch this one. He’s a charmer.” She shot me a wink over his head.

      I’d never smiled this much in my life. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

      “Charm is but one weapon in my arsenal.”

      Undoubtedly. He had the bad boy grin, the looks, the body--oh, the body--to woo women worldwide. “Maybe, if you play your cards right, we’ll find out.”

      He nodded. “Maybe.”

      His mother frowned and tousled his hair. “Well, charmer, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

      “Mom, this is Grace Wade.”

      She clutched her chest. “Oh, it’s such a pleasure. Rory has been singing your praises all over this town since you decided to move here. And she spent hours and hours shopping to get the perfect furniture for your office.”

      “She is quite the decorator.” I couldn’t help but agree. The place looked amazing.

      “Maybe you could give me the tour.” Blane’s gaze caressed my face as he dropped his voice low enough I doubted his mother heard.

      A warm feeling in the tiny space below my belly said he wanted more than a tour of the office. I twisted my hands together in my lap, a move normally accompanied by a mu-wah-ha-ha kind of laugh. “Anytime.”

      “I guess you’re anxious to get to work?” His mother had a tinkling quality to her tone that brought an image of a bell to mind.

      Blane raised an eyebrow. “I heard you had a busy afternoon.”

      “I did. My first client.” Small town America. Some things never changed, no matter how far away from home I traveled. “The Quinns.”

      He tilted his head to one side, his eyes half lidded. “You’re taking that case?”

      Maybe because of Rory’s reaction, or maybe because of the crime Quinn’s wife was accused of, my stomach clenched and my voice escaped in a bare whisper. “Yes.”

      He nodded, but a new chill in the air sent a shiver across my arms. I rubbed my hands up and down the prickled skin. “And I can’t talk you out of it?”

      “Probably not.” I lifted my chin a fraction higher and met his gaze.

      “She’s guilty, you know.” His tone, and the sudden hostility dripping from it, rippled across my skin.

      Blane’s mother toyed with a cross hanging from a delicate silver chain as frown lines etched her forehead. “She killed her baby.”

      Oh, boy.

      “Do you all have some inside information I don’t know about? A hidden video, or maybe a witness hiding in the closet that’s going to pop up in the eleventh hour?” I had virtually no details of the case, but I had a gut feeling about the broken woman I’d spoken to. More than my skills, and more than my education or knowledge of the law, I trusted my instincts.

      Blane’s mother turned without another word and the bell above the door jingled as she left. To calm my fury, I followed her with my gaze as she stalked past the window.

      “Grace, what if she did it? Can you live with it if she goes free?”

      “I’ve never had a problem sleeping at night before, and I can’t see this case bringing on a rush of insomnia either.” My peaceful sleep had nothing to do with the three or so glasses of wine I drank before bed. Probably.

      The weight of a dozen angry gazes settled on me. People in booths who’d barely taken interest in my arrival now glared at me. I couldn’t get a good read on Blane or his brother since neither would look at me.

      Blowing out a breath, I lifted my head and drummed my fingers on the table. “If she did it, I have faith the system will handle it.”

      “And you won’t interfere with that?”

      What kind of question was that? Of course, I would. My job demanded I interfere using every resource in my arsenal. “You mean, will I hold back if I believe she’s guilty?”

      Without СКАЧАТЬ